(Paris) The TikTok platform announced Thursday that it has enlisted best-selling author Joël Dicker to confirm his breakthrough in literature, where it is investing to give publishers, authors and booksellers an audience.
Posted yesterday at 10:49 a.m.
The Swiss novelist, who has sold 13 million copies worldwide since The truth about the Harry Quebert affair in 2012, launched her own publishing house, Rosie & Wolfe, in March with the publication of her latest novel, The Alaska Sanders case.
He opened a TikTok account in partnership with the French group Editis, which holds via Interforum the distribution of Rosie & Wolfe’s books, for the moment all signed Joël Dicker.
“I really believe in being on all the channels that allow you to read and have others read,” the 37-year-old writer said in a video.
For his communication, he had until then favored Instagram, where he has 129,000 subscribers, and used very little Facebook or Twitter.
In a France very attached to books, TikTok tries to present itself as one of the best networks to attract young readers, via the hashtag #booktok. And, like Editis, it finances training to help people in the book industry get started.
The usual format on TikTok, a short video with visual effects or music, does not lend itself well to traditional literary criticism, but much better to the presentation of “coups de coeur”.
Some books that sold little before being promoted by highly-following accounts have benefited. TikTok cites the example of all about us by Stéphane Ribeiro, a series of personality tests to be done as a couple: released very discreetly in 2007, this title multiplied its sales “by 20” in 2021.
Not all French publishers are there yet or their audience is limited. For Gallimard, for example, these are only his novels for young people (@gallimardjeunesseromans). For Hachette Livre, all houses are on a single account (@hachettefrance).
Some denounce the emptiness of these videos. Asked in January by AFP about the phenomenon, Frédéric Beigbeder, novelist candidate for the French Academy, noted that books with an optimistic message were overrepresented on TikTok.
“For me, those who admire personal development guides or “feel-good books”, it’s called uneducated. Let them study the history of literature and then we will discuss,” he said.